A R T   L E T T E R

The Timely Magazine of Art

First Show at Slover McCutcheon gallery	10/14

Patrick Faulhaber's tiny Fiesta is like a snapshot, a quick look at a flashy
motel sign which holds our interest momentarily as it passes. Heather
Edwards' photoreal paintings lack a point of view, and are simply a very
well painted rehash of earlier photorealist subjects: diners, subways,
reflections. Best of her three works is Alcatraz which begins to narrate a
human story. Phillip Wade needs to learn how to paint. There is a difference
between 1. true naivete, which is rare and can be intensely unusual and
fresh, 2. faux naivete, built on technical mastery, and 3. hackwork, using
naivete as an excuse. Caravaggio he's not.-B.D.



Michael Collins at McMurtry Gallery	?

There's some good to be said for Michael Collins' sludgy paintings: the thick
impasto is handled well, the surfaces of the paintings are dripping with
glistening eye candy. The hidden skulls in Broken Bridges are inadvertently
funny, playing a little game of hide and seek with the viewer while the
artist plods on, pursuing the serious business of depicting a ruined bridge.
Collins misses his own joke, and junks up what could be good looking,
sensuous abstractions with the tired trappings of Serious Art: creepy
forests, screaming faces,  ruins, skulls, art history, etc. Oh well . . .-B.D.



Tim Glover at Sally Sprout Gallery	10/7

Glover has created a technique of welding together steel elbows and
coating them with a crusty, rusty patina as if they had just been dredged up
from the ship channel, but he doesn't have such a strong idea of what to do
with this appealing surface treatment once he's got it. Glover seems to be
searching for  shapes to try out this new texture on, bending elbows this
way and that to find mildly interesting formal configurations to encrust.
Best in the show is the chain piece; since the shape of the piece is
changeable attention rests  squarely on the strong, evocative surface. The
pedestals (also made by Glover) are better than most of the pieces they
support. Sensitively proportioned and well crafted of beautiful materials,
they have their purpose firmly in mind: to hold up the art in an interesting,
unchallenging way.  Glover deserves credit for resisting the temptation to
throw together industrial scraps just for the fun of it, escaping the junk
sculpture aesthetic through simplicity and technical precision.



Address letters to: Bill Davenport, 801 Tulane St., Houston TX 77007

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Artletter is now available at Slover McCutcheon Gallery off Colquitt.